Sounds Like...

When I remember to check the mail, it's usually my favorite part of the day. The sky is a faint shade of lavender in the summer, dark purple in the winter. It's a small mailbox, simple. The ground in front of it is decorated with ivy and sometimes puddles. I noticed when getting the mail at this time I could hear a faint song of crickets. It always made me smile and think of camping in the summer.

This morning I left and the sky was painted light gray, only traces of violet.  The sun was peeking over Mt. Rainier, trying to take the chill from the air. I was walking taller, straighter and smiling already when I stopped at the bottom of my hill to listen. The crickets were greeting me and I drank it in, thought this time of laying in the high grass on Grandma's farm.

After a few moments, it occurred to me that it wasn't really the right time for crickets. I crossed the street to the mailbox. I stood there listening when it finally hit me. The lovely sound I'd been enjoying wasn't from crickets. It was the fan on top of the building behind my mailbox. Made me laugh at myself a little and I needed to.  I called my dad to make him laugh too.

 I told him all about the "crickets" and I heard him smile. He started to laugh as he told me a story about mom. They were driving one evening when mom commented on how beautiful the moon was. My dad had to inform her it was actually a street light. And then he told me a story about himself.

One day out hunting he described  the intensity of the hunt. He talked about how long he waited for the perfect shot, never believing his luck in how the deer seemingly didn't sense him at all.  When he finally pulled the trigger and the deer didn't move he started toward it, bewildered. He was positive he'd hit it his target.  Finally, he saw that not only was it only a tree with the branches just so-he was not the first to think so. "Riddled with holes," he told me.

We laughed together, admitting to have mistaken planes for bright stars.  Maybe even wished on a few.

"You see Honey? You come by it naturally."